Nancy Pelosi’s victory over Harold Ford for Minority Leader (it’s official now) is interesting from the standpoint of identity politics, the chief motivator of the Democratic Party in recent years. Pelosi represents a demographic that Democrats desperately need to take back if they’re to be successful as a national party: white women. Clinton won with overwhelming white woman support (48-41 over Dole), but this evaporated in 2000, when they went for Bush, 49-48. But there’s a real question as to whether Pelosi has what it takes to appeal to white women outside the liberal enclave. If her main issues are going to be abortion, welfare, affirmative action, opposition to the war with Iraq, and high taxes, she loses, because white women are aligned with white men on these issues. If she stresses the economy (and has a real plan to improve it), the environment, education, and child care, she has a chance to win.
Meanwhile, African-Americans are going to be more and more disenchanted with a Democratic Party that takes them for granted, which depresses their turnout, and Latinos will be up in the air, probably representing the most important voting bloc in the near future. Bush has demonstrated an ability to reach out to Latinos, with friendly attitudes toward bi-lingual education, immigration, and religion, while all the Democrats have to offer is welfare and affirmative action, issues that alienate white people, including women.
Identity politics is a tightrope, and I doubt Pelosi has the acumen to walk it successfully.
I don’t know. What if Pelosi — who looks like a fighter — turns out to be the liberal American Margaret Thatcher?
A fighter does not a Thatcher make. Gingrich and Tip O’Neil were pugnacious, and neither one managed to effect any sort of significant change — especially in contrast to the popular presidents at whom they were aiming their lances.
Pelosi is not an idiot, but she’s no left-wing Margaret Thatcher, either.
I am quite amused at American conservatives continuing to cast Pelosi as “typical San Francisco liberal.” I note that you, Richard, have not made that distinction. She’d never have risen to her current role if that were her defining characteristic, and it would be suicide for the Democrats if it were true.
I think you phrase the key question about Pelosi as she takes this critical role correctly: “Does she have the political accumen to walk the thin tightrope of identity politics?” The democratic leadership thinks so, and if you read their own documents, or that of the democratic leaning press in California, that’s how they cast Pelosi: as the politically astute consensus builder in the party, something Gephardt and Daschle have failed at miserabley, and a challenge that’s plagued the party since the days of Theordore Rex. Pelosi has to re-enfranchise and coalesce the traditional democratic base into a unified political entity – an amazingly difficult challenge right now.
The dis-unity of the Democrats is the GOP’s strongest tool now. After that, it is clearly the Latino block.